


Trust

by lackluster_lexicon



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Explicit Language, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackluster_lexicon/pseuds/lackluster_lexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has a lousy day. Bruce makes him feel better. Lots of swearing, ends with fluff. Clint's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viperf0x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viperf0x/gifts).



> I'll give a cyber-hug to anyone who wants to write a sexy sequel. (I'm no good at writing smut, but GOD do I love it.)
> 
> 10/25: Made some minor edits, mostly to dialogue.

“You have to be _fucking_ kidding me.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Clint set his jaw, and he would have punched the man in front of him smack in the nose if he hadn’t just learned that said man was back from the dead.

“Hard to tell with you sometimes.” Clint glanced to Natasha, who had remained silent beside him since they’d walked into the meeting room. They locked eyes, and she didn’t need to say a word for Clint to know that she was just as furious as he was, so he turned back to the agent who had called them in – with an email, no less, sent by one of his new underlings on his new team. Clint may have known better than to punch the guy, but he could at least tear him a new one verbally, and he knew Natasha had his back on this one.

And Coulson – Agent Phil Coulson, Level 7, killed in action on May 4, 2012, and now leaning against the table, arms and ankles crossed in a show of nonchalance – had to know this was coming as well. He also remained silent as Clint closed the distance between them, not even offering Clint the satisfaction of blinking as Clint jabbed a finger at Phil’s chest – but with no contact, Clint wasn’t that cold, even though a year was plenty long enough for Phil’s wound to have healed.

“So hey, great, not gonna lie, glad to see you’re alive, but what the _fuck_ , Phil? We put an empty casket in the ground. Steve still has those fucking cards” – Phil blinked at that – “yeah, _those_ cards, the ones Fury smeared with your goddamn _blood_ and used to coerce Steve onto the field. And now you get to just replace Natasha and me? What kind of reverse psychology bullshit did you have to pull to talk Melinda May back into action? And who the _fuck_ is this Ward kid?”

Phil was bristling now. “Agent Barton, I hardly – ”

“Oh, _fuck_ no.” Clint shot Natasha an incredulous look – _Can you fucking_ believe _this?_ – before whirling back on Phil. “Don’t fucking ‘Agent Barton’ me like this is business as usual. You promoted this guy and dragged Melinda back into the field instead of contacting us. _Us_. We were already in the fight, we were already signed on for the Avengers Initiative, we didn’t _need_ anything to avenge – and we’ve followed you to hell and back a thousand times over and a thousand times again, and you couldn’t find it in you to let us know you were still breathing, much less starting a team?”

“And if I had contacted you, would you have signed on?”

Clint balked at that, giving Phil just enough of an opening to keep going.

“Didn’t think so. You have a good thing going with the Avengers – both of you do.” He made a point of looking to Natasha, who remained impassive. “And trust me, Clint, I wanted to tell you both sooner, but then we got caught up in something, and – ”

“And the job’s bigger than all of us, yeah, I know.” Clint waved a dismissive hand and returned to Natasha’s side with his back to Phil. “That’s not the point, jackass. The point is that we should have been the first to know you were okay.” Even as he spoke to Phil, he was looking to Natasha – _I can’t handle this right now_ – and the message she sent back to him was clear.

_Go. I’ll take it from here._

He nodded and crossed to the door without another word, throwing it open so violently it crashed into the wall and almost bounced right back at him. He didn’t bother slowing enough to slam it shut it again; he just kept walking, and anyone who found themselves in his way immediately moved over as his clip carried him down the hall to the elevators and into the farthest car from Phil’s office. Only when the doors slid shut behind him did he allow himself to slump against the wall, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until gray spots blossomed behind his eyelids. After a while he lifted his head when he noticed he wasn’t moving and reached for the button console, intending to head down to the ground floor and back to the mansion where the Avengers had all taken residence but instead pressing the button to head up two floors.

There were only two people alive who he could handle seeing right now, and one of them was picking up the Coulson-roast where he’d left off. The other was Bruce Banner, and while Clint had initially been reluctant to allow Bruce into SHIELD headquarters, he was now supremely grateful that Bruce was as stubborn as Clint was. Then again, Bruce also thought he had something to prove, and since he neither desired nor would likely ever be asked to take on field work, he was quick to request a place in the science division. They’d almost fought about it, with Clint insisting that Bruce didn’t need to sell his soul to SHIELD to prove anything until Bruce finally cracked and confessed that he also wanted to be as near Clint as possible, and Clint – well. He just couldn’t argue with that since he himself was never completely at ease unless he was either with Bruce or knew Bruce was safe at home. And it looked like Bruce got the “I told you so” points for this one, since Clint was bee-lining to him on Bruce’s fourth day on the job.

Of course, as soon as the elevator doors opened and Clint stepped into the hall, he caught sight of the tail end of a convoy of agents in hazmat suits headed where he needed to go.

_Shit._

Clint broke into a full sprint, easily overtaking the hazmat team just as they reached Bruce’s lab, and shoved his way past them to get through the door first. He threw the door open expecting a jade giant and total carnage but was met instead with a chagrined but very human-sized Bruce and the smell of…ammonia?

“Relax,” Bruce said, mostly to the hazmat crew as they poured in after Clint, “it was just a paper cut. I have it under control.” He raised his hand to indicate the bandage around his left index finger and the hazmat kit he was using to clean the desk and dispose of everything. “But the kid over there” – Bruce nodded to the corner – “he might need a hand.”

Clint and the hazmat crew instinctively followed Bruce’s gaze to see a gaggle of interns huddled in the corner, with one of them sporting a rather conspicuous wet spot on the front of his slacks.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake – ” It took Clint all of a fraction of a second to figure out what had happened, and he definitely was not in the mood to deal with this, so he grabbed the nearest hazmat tech and shoved him toward the corner. “Go take care of that, you jackasses.”

The rest of the team wavered, clearly unsure of whether to attend to Bruce (as was their purpose, and damn Fury for giving the friggin’ _interns_ access to the panic button that sent them running) or to follow Clint’s orders, until Clint jumped the desk and turned to glare at them. They promptly shuffled to the intern, sparing no backwards glances, and Clint took to packing Bruce’s laptop and notes while Bruce tossed the hazmat bag into the incinerator across the room. By the time Bruce returned, Clint had already slung Bruce’s bag over his shoulder, and Bruce wordlessly followed Clint out of the lab, to the elevator, and into Clint’s Camero. They remained silent as Clint peeled out of the garage and into traffic, stopping almost immediately at a red light. Clint scowled, but Bruce took the opportunity to rest his hand atop Clint’s on the gearshift, and that small gesture alone was enough to remind Clint to stop grinding his teeth and focus on driving safely.

They drove for another ten minutes in silence before Clint started to feel like he was ready to talk. He knew Bruce’s silence wasn’t apathetic – rather, Bruce always patiently waited for Clint to come around on his own, which Clint vastly preferred without ever having had to tell Bruce so – so he took his time trying to decide how to break the news about Coulson. When he finally opened his mouth, however, what came out instead was, “Are you okay?”

Bruce brushed his thumb against Clint’s knuckles, and Clint could practically feel Bruce’s wan smile. “I’m fine. I figured this would happen – you know, people being jumpy. Although having an intern wet himself because I gave myself a paper cut was a little more dramatic than I’d expected.” He paused, then added, “Right on the nail bed, though. Worst kind.”

Clint tried to smile at Bruce’s attempt at humor, but he just didn’t have it in him to fake it. Not that he needed to; he didn’t need to fake anything for Bruce, and clearly, Bruce was handling this far better than he was.

“Still. Fucking amateur.” Clint lifted his hand and spread his fingers so Bruce could lace his through. “That’s just – I mean, doesn’t _anybody_ in this goddamn organization know _anything_? If there were even the remotest chance you would Hulk out, you wouldn’t be there. And not because of Fury, ‘cause _fuck him_ , but because you’re _you_ and you would never – _god_ , it just chaps my ass, all the incompetence, you know?”

Bruce nodded, and that was all Clint needed to keep going.

“And I just…Jesus, Bruce.” Another red light, thank goodness, because Clint really wanted to be looking at Bruce when he said this.

“Coulson’s alive.”

For a moment Bruce’s expression remained unchanged as he waited for Clint to elaborate, and when he didn’t, Bruce sat up and leaned toward Clint, brow furrowed in confusion.

“…what? But…how? That was over a year ago…”

Clint barked a cold, dry laugh. “Yeah, I know, right? Fucking Christ. And he has a new team now, too, and only just told us – Natasha and me, his best operatives, and I’m not just saying that to be a dick.”

The light turned green, and Clint let his head drop back against the headrest with the forward movement of the car, finally spent. He’d meant to say more – _a lot_ more – but between the unexpected spectacle in the lab and his awareness of Bruce’s perception, he didn’t feel especially compelled to anymore. He could as good as feel Bruce’s understanding through their locked hands, in Bruce’s steady gaze, even warming the air between them.

Bruce got it. Bruce knew that it wasn’t about the new team or the kid pissing himself or even about Coulson, not directly. Clint was feeling betrayed, kept in the dark by the people he was told he could trust, and then having to deal with their paranoia and incompetence as those same people continuously demonstrated that they didn’t necessarily trust him or the people he cared about. And Clint, for one, didn’t think it fair that he had to wait for people to get over the whole Loki-mind-control thing (even though Clint himself wasn’t entirely over it, probably never would be, but it was _his_ brain that got hijacked, so everyone else could stop making it about them and get the fuck over it as far as Clint was concerned), just as it was unfair for Bruce to wait out everyone’s issues with the whole man-who-has-the-capability-to-level-a-city-working-around-open-flames-and-pointy-objects thing. Clint – and now Bruce – worked with SHIELD because they were good at what they did, and they deserved to be treated as worthwhile human beings rather than liabilities and loose cannons.

They finally pulled up to the mansion in renewed silence, and as soon as Clint turned the engine off, he pulled Bruce’s hand up to the steering wheel and leaned his forehead against it.

“I’m just so tired of this.”

“I know.” Bruce unfastened his seat belt and pulled one leg under him so he could lean over the gearshift and pull Clint to him. Clint complied with a groan, more of general aggravation than of resistance, and buried his face in Bruce’s shoulder while his arms found their way around Bruce’s waist in the awkward space. Clint growled again, this time in frustration that he wasn’t spooning with Bruce in a proper bed, and forced himself to pull away enough to look at Bruce.

“Your room or mine?”

Bruce’s smile alone was enough to lift Clint’s mood considerably.

“Let’s do mine. I think you need a backrub.”

“Ugh, Bruce, you don’t have to – ”

“I want to.” He glanced at the dashboard’s clock, then back to the Clint. “Among other things. The night is young.”

Clint had to smile at that, and he reached a hand into Bruce’s curls to pull him in for a kiss, warm and long and lingering.

“You’re perfect. Never change.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And romantic! What a catch.”

Bruce snorted and leaned in again, roughening up the kiss a little as he nipped at Clint’s lower lip before pulling away and opening the door.

“You know what I mean. Now get your ass in my bed.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” Clint pulled the keys from the ignition and climbed out of the car, dashing around the front to where Bruce waited for him. He usually felt a little schoolgirl-ish when they held hands, but this time he felt nothing but comfort as he laced his fingers through Bruce’s on their way inside.

Screw SHIELD and everyone in it. Clint had Bruce, and that kind of trust was all he needed.


End file.
